Page 79 of Even If the Sky is Falling
It was a moment before he gently lifted me to him, his hands pressing against my belly, his mouth at my shoulder and my neck. “You made me better, Piper. You made me want to be better.”
I turned in his arms and kissed him, this time slowly with our bodies against each other, touching everywhere we could until we had to pull apart to breathe. “You made me better, too.” We kissed again and we kept kissing, making up for all the years we didn’t kiss and somehow erasing all other kisses that filled the space before this moment.
“This is romantic,” I said, cupping his jaw and shifting from foot to foot.
“But it’s freezing and uncushioned?” He finished my sentence for me. “Want to go back to our other hideout? There’s a couch there.” He slid his arms out of his shirt and draped it over my shoulders. “And M&Ms.”
“You read my mind,” I said, sliding my arms into the sleeves and involuntarily inhaling his scent on the fabric. “Maybeyou’reactually the smartest.”
“I like you so much,” he said, taking my hand, “that I won’t even make you repeat that later.”
8
Hale
Saturday Morning
Istroked Piper’s bare back in the makeshift bed we’d created, pulling the cushions and pillows off the ancient couch. A lamp on one of the desks was a soft glow in the room and the shadows around us were soft. We’d devoured each other like we had no time other than now, which I guessed was true, and Piper was everything I wanted at the end of the world. The night before, we’d cuddled together after another round, both drowsy and warm against each other, the chaos of what was happening aboveground recessing into the shadows. In this lulling sleepy murmur she’d asked me why I got divorced. My parents had asked me that, colleagues and friends, too, and I’d always said I let work get in the way. It wasn’t a lie, but Piper’s soft murmur pushed me to say more. I’d pulled her closer and admitted, “It was too easy. We never disagreed or fought or anything. It was easy and then it was...unfulfilling. We never pushed each other to grow.”
Piper had given a softmmmsound against my chest as her finger traced lazy circles over my skin. “She didn’t get it.”
“I didn’t get it,” I’d corrected. “I was content, but I was never happy. I was never...excited. It’s hard to admit you’re still chasing the high of a beautiful girl risking a fall down the stairs to defeat you. That that’s what you truly want.”
Piper had been quiet and I wondered if she’d fallen asleep until she said, “I, on the other hand, always told men up front I was that woman. Most of them wanted easy.”
“We should have found each other again sooner.” I stroked up her back, fingers tickling the nape of her neck, bracing for the response because I meant it.
“We have each other now,” she’d said against my chest, before drifting off to sleep, the cadence of her breathing changing to a slow, steady rhythm while my thoughts whirled.
Hours later, I stared at the ceiling, counting the tiles, and making and remaking patterns out of them as I rolled her words around my mind.
She stirred under my fingers. “It’s morning?”
“Yeah,” I said, tracing circles on her shoulder. “After five.”
She sat up, rubbing her eyes. “Good morning.” There were a few sweatshirts hanging on the back of the door to the graduate suite and she’d pulled one on along with my boxers sometime in the night to trek to the bathroom. She looked sleep rumpled and I linked my fingers with hers because I couldn’t not touch her.
I hadn’t slept, but staring at the ceiling I’d had one recurring thought. I don’t want to be without this woman and her words had taken up residence in my head.We have each other now.The idea of that, even as we sat on the precipice of the end of the world, felt warm. It made me feel right in a way I never had and I took in her sleepy expression, brushing a piece of hair off her forehead. “Marry me, Piper.”
Her hand fell from mine and she stared at me with an owlish expression. “Are you drunk? Did you finish that bottle of Scotch while I was asleep?”
I laughed, the laugh of the exhausted and content. “Marry me,” I repeated, picking up her hand again.
“Edison, there are so many things about that statement that I don’t even know where to start.”
“Start here.” I placed her hand on my heart. “I know it’s too fast and also we’re waiting for the world to burn down any minute and I know we can’t actually get married in this concrete basement.”
She let me place her palm on my chest and kept it there, the warmth of her hand through the fabric of my shirt even as she nodded. “Yes, those are a few good reasons. Also, we’ve spent twelve hours together after fifteen years of not speaking and in college we were enemies! You can’t ask me to marry you.”
“To be fair, though, they’ve been a good twelve hours. And we were rivals, not enemies. Marry me.”
Piper let her hand fall from my chest and looked around the room as if for an explanation.
“And I knew I wanted you from the first moment I saw you and I think I knew I loved you on some level since the first time you competed with me for a grade and I knew for certain I loved you onevery levelwhen you let me be with you after the MCAT results came back. You let me see you cry and hold you when, for once, you weren’t the best at something. When maybe you felt like you’d failed.” I had never forgotten the way she’d melted against me, the way her crying sounded, so hopeless, and when I hugged her how she’d leaned into me.
She rubbed the side of her neck with her index finger. “It was dark. You didn’t see me.”
“Well, I saw for a minute. It was something and you trusted me.” There was silence between us for a few moments, the unmistakable sounds of birds outside the painted window where I knew a group of trees sat. The birds chirping was such a life-affirming sound and so out of place with the moment. “I know it’s ridiculous, but marry me.”
